Manually sorting flatware according to type and orientation is a time consuming and tedious labor intensive task at restaurants and cafeterias such as cafeterias at major universities where thousands of pieces of flatware are used and must be washed each day.
At such facilities, dirty flatware is normally dumped unsorted into a tray for washing in an automatic dishwasher. After washing, the individual pieces of flatware are then manually sorted according to type and placed handle down in individual knife, fork, teaspoon, and soup spoon bins for a sanitizing cycle in the dishwasher. The reason the flatware is placed handle down is so that the sanitizing solution drips off the head of the flatware during the sanitizing cycle.
After sanitization, the flatware is then manually transferred to serving trays or bins, usually handle end up.
The need for automatic flatware sorting machines was recognized in U.S. Pat. No. 4,954,250. Unfortunately, the apparatus disclosed therein was excessively large, did not always sort the flatware properly according to type, and, in any case, did not automatically orient the flatware for the sanitizing cycle. Thus, this apparatus still required a fair amount of manual labor.
Other attempts at manufacturing a fully automatic flatware sorting machine have also failed. As discussed in the '250 patent, complex image recognition systems have been developed in an attempt to sort flatware both according to type and orientation but such systems exhibit high failure rates, low reliability, and are not robust enough to withstand the harsh kitchen environment where they are used.
Thus, there is a need for a fairly compact, robust, highly reliable, and fully automatic flatware sorting machine which sorts flatware not only according to type but also according to orientation to eliminate the tedious manual labor associated with sorting operations in restaurants and cafeterias.